


Nights Like This

by brieflyshystarfish



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 20:23:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8071480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brieflyshystarfish/pseuds/brieflyshystarfish
Summary: There is a wildness in Regina she refuses to deal with. Until she has to. Swan Queen. This story is set in a (slightly slightly future) time right after the EQ/Regina split is resolved and Regina is integrated as one whole being who is full of feelings and things that she'd formerly suppressed.A little angst, a little fluff, later on, back and forth. SQ all the way. Love is best.





	1. Chapter 1

There are nights like this.

Like putting on Beyonce’s album, the one that’s got Jealousy, which starts off with I’m in my penthouse half naked, and Regina is on her second drink when she gets in the shower with the tumbler in hand, half full of amber, showering clinically and fast, then eyeing her body critically in the mirror as she towels off. Will it serve. Yes. Finds the small dress with the two x straps on the back—black, yes—and the right heels—and gets in the car and drives an hour and a half to a dive bar on the wrong side of another town. 

She learned the first time to magic herself before she left. Drink enough to be a mess but not a messy driver. Magic the beamer so it would never, ever crash or hurt herself or somebody else. That’s the spell—like Teflon. And tonight she gets in and speeds away. 

She has until morning. 

Henry’s with Snow. Emma’s with—it doesn’t matter. 

These nights didn’t use to be frequent. Now they are. Regina knows damn well why. But it doesn’t matter. It’s a release valve. A way to exorcise that pressure. It is difficult to want what you can’t have. It’s more difficult to pretend that you don’t want it. 

Nobody knows her name here. She doesn't invent a backstory or a name. She simply doesn’t give one and she’s hot enough that it doesn’t fucking matter. It is so quick to find the right body to pair with hers. It is so easy to say no and no and no and then yes. To spend the whole night beneath glittering strings of colored lights and lean on the old grooved bartop and pass quarters to the bartender, who has a crush on her too, and who will feed the juke for her just so she doesn’t have to get up. 

But tonight it’s different. 

It’s not enough. Usually the speed, once she hits that lone long highway and drives the speed higher and higher—once she signals herself off—that highway has already done its work, leaving her feeling clean and wrung-out and sated in a way only running, literally running, from problems gives. 

But the pressure that had started earlier in the day—in her office—did not abate, and Regina still feels—unhappy? Unsettled? Not strong—when it is time to pull off the highway. 

Then. Everything is wrong. The distance is still wrong. Not enough. The distance, for example, between her mouth and the mouth of this man at the bar—passably handsome, with soft eyes and tender hands—crashing into her own is not enough. He is suddenly too close, too warm, too real, and Regina lifts her hands from her lap and pushes him gently away as his mouth closes over hers.

This isn’t working. Because this isn’t about being desired. Is it?

She gets in the car. She drives home. She is neither sober nor drunk but she is dangerous in the way women are dangerous when we are too alone and too pitched forward and too much, when our own hands can’t contain us. 

When the phone rings, it merely annoys Regina, hurtling like a bullet through the dark on the empty highway. When she sees Emma’s name on the screen, she loose lets a string of profanities the likes of which nobody in Storybrooke has ever heard. 

Emma’s call goes to voicemail.

Her phone pings a minute later. 

Tempted to pick it up, battling herself for a good forty seconds or so—Jesus, Regina thinks, finally grabbing at the phone in the passenger seat and stabbing her finger viciously at the icon—and hears nothing. Shuffling and a mumbled conversation with Henry. Then, “Regina? Regina? —oh, god this is a message. I’m so sorry. Listen, Regina, I had to pick something up for Henry for school tomorrow. It’s late so I figured I would come by but I don’t want to wake you up. I guess we could do it tomorrow. Well, I’m gonna try now. If you are asleep or—out, I guess—or whatever, I mean, fuck, what do I mean, well okay I’ll head over there soon and I’ll knock quietly and I’ll be really quiet so that—“ and message abruptly cuts off Emma’s rambling. 

Regina’s fingers tighten over the steering wheel. Her foot eases on the pedal ever so slightly. She feels the beginnings of the rage and tears draw tight in her throat.

Will Emma Fucking Swan never leave her alone. 

But Henry. Regina releases a low sound of frustration, perpetually undone by her son. 

The night is a wash, she knows. She exhales, feeling herself fold uncomfortably back into an acceptable version of herself. She looks down at her clothing. And grimaces. What a waste of an outfit. 

____

 

It’s been three weeks since she’s been reintegrated with the Evil Queen, and—that’s good. It’s good to be whole. Except now Regina—used as she has been her entire life to suppressing one or the other or some third aspect of herself—feels herself as volatile and whole and much vaster and deeper and stronger than she ever had imagined. 

And shit keeps coming to the surface. Without permission. 

For example. When Emma came traipsing into her office earlier that day with their lunch and she lifted her eyes and Emma was just staring at her, with that wide open affection which seemed to always be on full display for Regina and for, really, anybody else who cared to look at how Emma looked at Regina. 

And Regina’s spine snapped up like a stack of coins. Her voice was swampy and low and tinged with fury. “What now, Emma?” 

It took moments even for Regina to catch up with herself, but she knew, glittering, in the belly, like some shiny snake, what was happening: when Emma looked at her this way it was as if they were together. They were not together. She was with the pirate. She had not chosen Regina. 

And this, but only lately, only since integration, had made Regina unaccountably, perhaps accountably, furious. 

Emma had jumped back. “I—just—are you okay?”

With effort, Regina reigned herself in. “Yes, yes. What did you bring?” She turned her eyes down to her papers, then stood with the pretense of stretching. “Hmm?”

But the fury stayed and she couldn’t look at Emma. And when Emma dropped the bag of food on the desk and then hastily said, “You look—busy—ah, I’ll come back later,” and fled and did not, actually, come back later, the rage did not dissapate. It grew. 

She wondered when this began, but she didn’t care. She was just mad. She would hang onto the anger as long as she could because hanging onto the anger meant she didn’t have to deal with the obvious. 

Regina was really and truly done with being the one who was not chosen. With being second. Done with mourning ghosts and never-could-bes. 

Rage, if rage was a wildness that flirted with self-destruction, was so much better. 

____

 

But there are nights like this.

When she pulls into her driveway, Emma is leaning against a column on the porch. Regina feels her eyes on her as she slams the door and begins walking as steadily as possible towards the door, hips doing exactly what they are supposed to, swaying perfectly over the drumbeat of her heels. 

And when she does look up, Regina sees Emma’s eyes clouded over with jealousy. Good, she thinks. 

“Where were you?”

Regina unlocks the front door and gives Emma a cool once-over. “None of your business, Ms. Swan. What assignment is Henry missing?”

Emma follows her inside. “Jesus, this feels like before. Regina, stop!” 

Regina does, abruptly, and Emma skids right into her, putting out a hand to stop herself and letting it come to rest on Regina's shoulder. The foyer is dark and Emma smells like pinecones, dusk, home: right things that roil Regina's pulse.

“Get off of me, Emma.”

Emma steps back, her bright eyes narrowed. “Regina, what the fuck is going on?”

Regina flips the light on, feeling magic begin to reflexively spark in her hands. And says, quietly, anger rolling on every syllable, “I wish I had never met you.” 

It is the most honest thing she’s said in weeks. And it is also too much. 

Emma simply stares at her. “The fuck, Regina.” But there is a tremor at the end of the sentence. 

Regina feels hurt begin to bite, then punch at her own gut, punch and punch and punch. 

“Wait—“ Regina said, and now it’s too much, this is exactly what karma is, doing the thing and then being undone by it, and she reaches out to touch Emma’s arm, her sleeve, and she feels an intense self-hatred rise, as if the self-hatred is saying, who is she to touch Emma. Who is she to love Emma like this, this possessively, who is she. But when she opens her mouth to speak, nothing comes out. 

Emma gives her a second, maybe two seconds, then yanks her arm away in a clean sweep, and for the third time that day, takes a step back. 

It feels final. 

As does Emma’s voice, slow and measured. “His science assignment is in a blue folder and he says it is on his desk.” She looks at Regina evenly, and her eyes are masked and entirely too steady. “I’ll wait here.”

Now Regina curses—“Fuck, no. Emma. I’m sorry.”

But Emma just regards her, and then a tiny crack, and when Regina takes another step forward, Emma unleashes. “I waited for you,” and her voice is cold.

“Tonight?”

“Tonight. I waited for you.”

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

Emma doesn’t flinch. “I’m going to ask you one more time, Regina, before I leave this house and it takes us months or whatever to clean this up. I’m being a goddamn adult. Try it. Now. With me. What is going on.” Her eyes travel up and down Regina again, and her gaze is incomprehensible to Regina. Somewhere between desiring and clinical. Like herself in the shower. An intentional distance, maybe. “Why are you being like this.”

They aren’t questions, clipped as they are by Emma’s own reluctance, perhaps, to be anything less than cold. But Emma waits longer than a beat as Regina puts the words together in her head, feeling blank terror seed her stomach. 

“I went to a bar.” She stops. 

“And?”

“The highway wasn’t far enough. The drink wasn’t strong enough. The well-dressed man with salt and pepper hair and kind eyes who I let put his hands on my waist and tongue in my throat wasn’t--you.” Regina finishes flatly, and the anger is back, but there’s something else. An insistence. That Emma understand. And go away. Let her get over this. “None if it was you.“ And feels satisfied when Emma blinks rapidly and lifts her fingers to nervously tuck her own hair behind her ear. 

Regina takes another step forward. “I don’t want to know you if this is what it is.”

“You want me,” Emma finally says. Carefully, softly. 

“No,” Regina says. Her voice is sharp and irritated. She forces herself to be clear. “I am in love with you and it hurts. It is exceptionally painful. Since the integration. And I don’t think I knew before. Or if I did, I buried it along with all of the other parts of myself I did not want to know about." 

Emma stares at her, but it’s different. It's terrifying, actually. Emma doesn’t move or do anything, not any goddamn thing, not at all. 

Regina flourishes her fingers and when the small purple cloud dissolves in her hand is Henry’s folder.

She offers it to Emma. “Here.”

Emma hesitates one second, and Regina can see it clearly in her. A curiosity? A reluctance to give in so quickly to her desire to run and prove Regina right? And then she plucks the folder from Regina’s hand and transports herself out of Regina’s house in a cloudy puff. 

And Regina, surprised for the first time that day, feels something building and deconstructing itself in her gut at the same time. And when regret sets in—for everything, literally everything—it sets teeth on the inside of her gut in a hard bite that does not let her go. 

She goes upstairs and strips herself and soundproofs the house and keeps the lights off and turns the music all the way up and throws herself still and rigid on top of the bed. 

It is not loud enough to drown out the sound of Emma’s heart, beating in time with her own and gloriously and widely thrumming.

How on earth can she feel Emma's heart?

She makes herself breathe, lets her thoughts pattern themselves into order. This is what it is to be blown wide open. This fucking integration. Her own fucking heart. Too red. Too open. Too much. Now she can feel everybody's? She groans inwardly, then she listens, for a moment, to see if she can hear Henry's. 

Yes. There he is, and she muses over it tenderly, absorbed in the feeling of her son's heart, his steady even breathing. She realizes he must be asleep, now. So much for the science project, and she feels a pang. 

Emma's heart is loud--stubborn, insistent, calling.

Regina sits up in bed, her stomach clenching nervously, suddenly hyperaware of their connection. Of what she had not wanted to know. 

Knowing, too, that Emma is going to apparate back into the house in a matter of seconds.


	2. Study

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> our heroes interact
> 
> swan queen xoxox <3 
> 
> start with ch. 1.

Reintegration had been Emma's idea first. But nobody really knew what that meant: they thought, probably, that Regina would go back to being Regina, the Regina of the last couple of years who had become tamer, more hesitant, less willing to be disliked. 

It was a way to solve the problem of the Evil Queen, sure, and Regina was used to being dealt with as if she was a problem to solve. Given her history, it wasn't the worst way to be treated. She knew she was lucky to be alive, as had she existed in a fairy tale with any other outcome, she could likely have been killed in the most creative and torturous way possible. 

Nobody, not even Regina, had considered the possibilities, the psychic impact of what they had managed to do in the field that day. Emma gathered both Regina and the Evil Queen in a shock blast of magic while Regina, from within the glistening, snaking force of Emma's magic, recited an integration spell, memorized and drawn from a musky and crumbling book lodged in the back of one of Rumple's bookshelves at the pawn shop. When Emma had dropped her magic and run across the field to crouch breathless beside Regina's slumped body, just one, Regina had been barely awake, her body a small earthquake rolling with shocks. 

She felt as if she'd been birthed anew. And when Emma touched her face, calling her name as if from a great distance, Regina had leaned forward to kiss her but Emma had simply picked her up and carried her as if she was even tinier than she was, and Regina had closed her eyes and fallen asleep, lulled by the sinewy and fragrant mass that was Emma Swan. 

Regina felt the queen within her, not separate, not hiding, but as if she was the queen, and she wondered for a moment if she'd been duped, or crazy, but idly thought, as she drifted off to sleep in Emma's arms, that yes in fact she was the queen, and yes also she was the girlchild on the horse who had loved Daniel, and yes, yes, she was the woman and mayor of a town who was in love with the savior, the savior who was carrying her strong and gentle right now. And what was her integration but an acceptance of all that she had loved and did love. What was integration except acceptance of all there was left to lose. 

There was no avoiding anything. No compartmentalizing. No pretending. 

No acquiescing. 

And so when she woke in her house to Henry's wide, hopeful eyes, she gathered a breath that froze in her when her eyes darted past his shoulder to see Emma's hands were twined with Hook's, to see Hook's benevolent gaze, to see Emma piercing her with her bright, loving, relieved eyes--and not letting go of either of them--his hands, her eyes. 

Come to me, she wanted to say. But she averted her eyes back to Henry, and when Emma came over she pressed her hands only to Henry, her eyes darting and tremulous and hungry on Regina's. And a small hope bloomed ferociously in Regina--the possibility of being loved. 

And then Hook tugged her, and Emma left with him, leaving Henry to Regina for a bit longer. 

And a rage swept through Regina then, trailing in its wake a breathless, dizzy, aching need. 

______

 

Emma poofs herself back into Regina's house less than ten minutes after leaving it. 

The music is pounding and it is useless because Regina can feel Emma there, she can feel her downstairs, can feel the emotions in her heart and all she wants to do is hide but knows from experience it is better not to be caught hiding. 

After a moment of deliberation, Regina lifts her fingers. As the streak of purple cloud vaporizes, she notes with satisfaction the black lace netted panties, the ruched garter beneath the long silk grey robe. 

She tightens the sash to the robe, covering herself, weaponizing herself. 

"Regina," she hears, and nods towards the music, and the volume drops dramatically as Emma Swan tentatively turns the handle of the door to her bedroom and steps inside. 

Emma's gaze dips down Regina's body before lifting to meet her eyes. Seconds stretch into infinity. Regina speaks first, curling her lip into a gesture that does not lack cruelty. "Why the hell can't you just leave me alone?"

"Can I come in?"

"Does the pirate know your whereabouts?"

Emma's eyes flash darker. She holds Regina's gaze. "You're better than this."

Abruptly, Regina stands. Emma jumps. "No," purrs Regina, walking towards Emma. "I'm not. I'm not perfect, or meek, or a queen, or a mayor. I am a woman, Em-ma," she says, now only inches away. Her voice drops an octave. "A woman. And I do not have to be good ... or soft."

The heat between them, as always, in fury, in relief, in all emotions, whenever they stand this close together, is immense, exquisite, immediate, a furnace blast, how things get wavy and unclear when the ground is too hot. Emma swallows, and her eyes flicker down again for a second before returning to Regina's. 

"I want to talk," Emma says quietly, the barest edge of her breath ghosting against Regina's lips. "I want to talk with you. Please let me talk to you."

"Talk," Regina says, voice similarly quiet, eyes not less angry but now searching Emma's. She does not step back.

Neither does Emma, and a smile creeps to her lips before they settle into a firm thin line again. "I didn't know--It's true what you said, Regina? That you're in love with me?"

Regina feels her heart in her throat. This suddenly feels like a bad idea. What does? Everything does. The proximity. Her virtual nakedness under the silk. All the rage. But most of all, saying what she said. 

But she is brave, braver than she thought: "Yes, Emma." She flicked her eyes heavenward as if to draw strength from a God she doesn't believe in. "I should not have said that. I shouldn't have said it at all, and I shouldn't have said it the way I did." She pauses. "But I'm not apologizing, either."

But Emma's eyes are narrowed and shining. She takes a step closer. "Like marry me love me?"

Regina rolled her eyes. "I heard that was legal now, so, yes, if we have to put it that way."

Emma steps closer again, her eyes fixed on Regina, who is beginning to wonder when Emma is going realize that they are damn near out of space, that if she keeps moving their bodies are going to be pressed together. Sudden want spirals through Regina, aching her. Yet, calmly, seemingly undeterred, Emma simply asks, "Love me even though I'm with somebody?"

Regina swallows, eyes tracing Emma's. She tries to keep her voice gentle, but a roughness creeps in around the edges. "I loved you before him, Emma. I didn't know then, but I did."

Emma's eyes close for a second, and when they open Regina is surprised, no, not surprised--relieved to see, wanting to touch--the well of tenderness in there. A silence stretches between them, and Emma is just gazing at her, pointedly, fixed, depth and hunger and softness. Emma reaches her fingers out and grasps the sleeve of Regina's robe gently between two fingers. "I'll leave him, then." 

Regina doesn't do anything. She doesn't breathe, she doesn't move, and she doesn't stop looking at Emma. 

"I'll leave him, Regina," Emma repeats softly. "I can't have you hurting like this."

Disbelief, then horror, flood Regina. "No!" she spits out as she springs backwards. "Not like this. You love him. He loves you. Don't you dare pity me," she says, her voice flashing sharp and distant. "I regret saying anything to you. This is a passing thing, a," she gestured off into the distance, "a side effect of losing the Evil Queen. Leave me be, Emma--"

"Stop!" Emma says. 

Regina took a breath. "You're my friend. You've been good to me. I'm sorry, Emma. But no, I can't allow that."

"You're misunderstanding me," Emma says quietly, gazing at Regina wih such open, naked longing that Regina just holds her breath. Then Emma bites her lip and looks at the floor for several seconds. When she finally speaks, her voice is subdued. "Can we just go downstairs and have a drink before you kick me out?"

"I'm not going to kick you out, Emma."

She flows past Emma, opening the door wider for her to pass through, and they walk quietly, not too hurriedly, to the living room. She pours Emma a drink, and Emma takes it and drinks half before setting her glass down on the table. Emma turns and says to Regina, rushing through her words, a blush staining her cheeks, "I want to lay my head in your lap. I want you to talk to me."

"Emma?"

But instead of answering, Emma grasps her wrist and tugs her to the couch. She kicks off her shoes. And when Regina sits, comfortably, Emma slides beside her and then lays sideways, curling her body into Regina's side, facing her belly. 

Regina, tentative, puts her fingers in Emma's hair, lightly combing the edges, and they are this way for long minutes before Emma speaks. 

"I've never been in love, Regina." Emma's eyes lift to connect to Regina's. She drops her gaze and her voice goes so soft. "Except maybe--maybe with you. I don't know what this is. I love, and that's hard enough. But in love?" she trails off, and lifts her fingers to trace a ripple in the fabric on Regina's thigh. Regina's breath jerks and Emma's wandering fingers pause. "I would and have and will continue to do everything and anything for you." Emma exhales sharply. 

"Regina, I've never, ever, even slept with a woman. And it scares me to think that you telling me how you feel could help me see how I feel."

Then Emma slips her warm fingers into Regina's. Shy. A wave of fierce tenderness pulls between them, and Regina can feel her own heart swelling in response. She wasn't crazy. She grasps Emma's hand and their fingers twine. Like earlier, the heat between them ratchets up.

This confession is everything for Regina, who feels years of something tight in her unspool into softness, feels, for the first real time, the weight and trust of Emma's head on her lap, her hand seeking hers. A tiny chance, a tiny hope for reciprocation, the smallest sliver of light working its way between them. 

How badly she wants to touch her. Kiss her. Show her, vehement and unequivocal and joyfully, how much she wants to love her. But instead: 

"Okay," says Regina, very softly. 

"Okay?"

"Okay," she says simply. She lifts their twined hands, and kisses Emma's palm softly, not immune to the soft shudder Emma releases when her mouth makes contact with Emma's warm skin, not immune to her own heart, straining itself against the wall of her chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one left, sorry it's been so long!!!


	3. Worth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Third of three chapters. Will make the most sense if you read them all. 
> 
> In which our heroes are beautiful together.

It's only been a three weeks. And the integration is like PMS on hyperdrive. How Regina is less hesitant, more open, more emotional, how things crowd to her surface indiscriminately, like fish from the depths of a pond when a person scatters bread. How when she sees Henry's face she remembers his namesake, her father, and feels a love bottom out within her. How Emma bending over a chair or smiling at her or even just driving by or texting her supremely neutral, logistical information about when Henry should be dropped off sends her heart into spasm. But other, lesser things inspire deep responses too. Like how Snow brings a tenderness to her throat and she is--feels--grateful for David. It's how she stopped by the farm stand on Thursday night and her only goal was not herself, and found herself carrying, delicately, the last of the summer vegetables to Snow's house, Snow, who she knew, had her hands full taking care of all of the people she shared with Regina. How she steps into the kitchen to prepare dinner, then portion and freeze the extra, and leaves two bottles of wine before she goes home. 

It's how she writes three letters on the second week to three different people she'd terrorized, letters of apology. How it isn't for forgiveness but in acknowledgement, how she remembers and connects that acknowledgement can hasten healing, can, at minimum, temporarily forestall the insanity caused by a trauma that has gone unrecognized. How, when she sits down in her vault to write these letters, the words issue forth from her like something bursting from below her skin, already grown, ripened, fermented, done. How much shit had practiced itself in her skin, shit she'd grown to ignore, that was simply speaking itself through her hands and heart now it was time for it all to be? Because until she set pen to paper she didn't know that her apology would be as clearly articulated and trustworthy as it emerged. 

The fourth letter she writes this week is to her mother, and it is the first of many letters to her mother, each of which will work out, ever so slightly, the sharp jerk of fishook in her heart that is Cora's absence. 

It's how her dreams are viscous, acid, teleporting her to whole memories she had barely even touched as she lived them, whole realms of desires and feelings and thoughts she had locked away or numbed herself to, as if they were ghosts she refused to see. How often these dreams were feelings, just feelings piled on top of feelings like laundry or reams of paper, ordered or unordered. How in her dreams she wanders through the stacks in the house, sensing but not seeing the presences of others, until her hand touches: a sock, a curtain, a book, and she is transported into a memory that is always something. Her face wet every morning, even because of beauty, because of beautiful things, or horrible things, or simply because of the retracing and remembering memory expects of her, gives her, literally, her body back, her body as her own, finally, wholly, and all of the histories lodged within it hers too. Because none of it will, or can, or has killed her. 

Mornings, Regina makes herself breakfast and works slowly backwards through what she likes, taking nothing for granted: tea? Tea. This kind, today. Eggs, maybe. Or cereal. She likes to stretch or run. Sometimes skips breakfast altogether to linger in bed past the alarm sounding to touch herself, bringing herself to the edge of orgasm and sliding off, or holding back, finding pleasure in the denial. Then rising and showering. 

She has a sweet tooth, she discovers. 

She misses Emma most in the mornings, even though Emma has never been part of her morning routine. 

 

______

 

It is new, and the house is dark and soft as if waiting. 

They are new. 

Emma holds Regina's gaze. 

When the phone rings, they both startle. Regina flicks her wrist and her cell appears. "Henry," she says, her voice oddly loud against the quiet. She answers and puts it on speakerphone. 

"Henry, are you all right? It's three o'clock in the morning."

"I know," he says blearily. "Ma didn't come back and I got worried."

"Kid, I'm here," Emma calls into the phone. "I'm so sorry I worried you."

Silence. 

"Henry, are you there?" Regina asks. 

A beat passes, and bleariness is now frustration. "Yeah. Ma, you could have left a note."

Emma opens her mouth to respond, but Regina cuts her off. "Henry, it was my fault. I kept her here longer than I should have. Where are you?"

"At Grandma and Grandpa's. We had dinner here tonight."

"Okay. Are you still in bed?"

"Yeah."

"Do you want to come here?" Regina asks gently. "We can come pick you up."

"I--I don't know. I thought you guys were fighting," and his voice sounds soft, quiet again, like the child he is, voice blurring back into sleep. 

"Everything's okay, kid," Emma said, equally soft. "I'm sorry we worried you."

"It's okay. Mom, will you stay on the phone with me until I go to sleep?" 

"Yes, Henry."

"Okay. Night, Ma. I love you."

"Love you, Henry. Sleep tight." Emma closes her eyes tight and wraps one arm around Regina's waist, and Regina notes the thin worry line that has formed around Emma's lips. She clicks Henry off of speakerphone and balances her phone between her shoulder and her ear as she uses both of her hands to touch Emma--one to brush back the hair that has obscured her face and the other to rest along her waist, willing Emma back from whatever rabbit hole she's gone down. 

She knows what Henry wants--it's to be sung to, which is what she had done when he was a child, and what, in rare moments, he needs in order to feel safe again. 

Emma doesn't know this, of course, and Regina delights in the shock that crosses Emma's face when she begins, in her low voice, to sing to their son. 

The smile that lights Emma's face is equal measure relief and love, and Regina knows, as her voice carries the soft rich sound throughout the house, that Emma had been sure she'd been rejected when Henry dismissed her from the call. 

But no. It's just this. 

Regina sings until she knows Henry is asleep, and then she keeps singing, Emma's head upturned now in her lap, her eyes bright and glistening because yes, Regina's voice is beautiful, is low and soft and feels intensely like home, and this is one more thing that has been unpacked in the integration, her own love of and discovery of her own voice. Never would she have sung in front of Emma. But there is no shame here. She has no more time or room for shame. 

Her voice now lowered just above a whisper, Regina takes her hand and traces down Emma's lips with her fingers, brushing the back of her fingers against Emma's jaw, touches her earlobe gently and circumnavigates her ear with the pads of her fingertips. And Emma doesn't move at all, eyes fixed on Regina's, until Regina's hand stills, and Emma tugs her hand into her own and draws them both slowly down the midline of her own body, first over her heart then slowly down to her belly. She rucks up her shirt and places Regina's hand flat on the lowest part of her stomach, her hand over Regina's, eyes never leaving Regina's. 

When the last song leaves her lips, because she can't help herself and it's the truest thing she knows, because she doesn't trust herself anymore, Regina bends her head closer and whispers to Emma's ear, "Beautiful."

Emma's eyes flash and she responds, insistent, rough, soft, "Kiss me, Regina, please." 

And Regina bends her head and Emma lifts hers. 

It is astounding how soft a woman's mouth can be. 

Emma lifts herself up, tangling both of her hands into Regina's, kissing her as if she was drowning. She straddles Regina's hips and presses her body impossibly close to Regina, who moans into her throat. They are all heat, all liquid, past ready, as formed as any two people can be together. Regina wonders if Emma knew this all along or is figuring it out now. It doesn't matter, she thinks, disjointedly. Her tongue snakes across Emma's teeth, and Emma growls low in her throat, opening herself wider to Regina, kissing her hungry and heated and deep, sliding her palms down Regina's sides to rest on her hips, and Regina feels the first quake in her as Emma begins to press her hips into hers. 

When Regina pulls back to exhale, Emma nips her lower lip between her teeth, dragging her tongue along her capture, eliciting a shudder and a moan from Regina that Regina hasn't heard herself make before, ever. 

Emma leans back, her eyes bright and dark and wanting, considering, unfathomable, and with her finger she brushes the robe off Regina's shoulder and snags her finger in the threaded lace of the strap. 

A thousand sparks litter through Regina at this touch: this is sex, now. 

In a quick movement, Emma descends her mouth onto Regina's shoulder, nipping carefully at the heated, scented skin, then drags her tongue up Regina's neck to her ear and flicks the lobe once. Regina's hips, totally of their own accord, roll once against Emma's. She feels Emma grin against her and opens her mouth to protest being laughed at but Emma's teeth graze her neck and she is done, her hips pushing insistently now against Emma's, her panties slicked with want, Emma's breathing labored and intense in her ear, Emma, who gathers their arms together now and holds them behind Regina, their chests rubbing now, and Regina can feel Emma in and touching every single part of her body. She moans, and there is no mistaking that sound. 

She forces herself to exhale. Inhale. Exhale. It is hard. She wants to fuck. She wants to be known, loved. She wants to know and love. 

Calm the fuck down, Regina. 

Emma lets their hands down slowly, then crushes her forehead into Regina's cheek. 

"Don't let me go, Gina," she says quietly. 

"No," she replies. "Hold on."

"I know we have to wait," Emma says. 

"Yes."

"I know," Emma repeats, breathlessly. 

But their bodies are still volcanoes. The heat is a real thing. It is dizzying. 

Regina knows that if she so much as moves a muscle, they will be making love the rest of the night, into the morning, possibly until even magic can't keep them awake. Self-control a hairsbreadth. She does not breathe. 

She knows Emma. She knows that if they start this way, it will be too much reckoning. 

She doesn't give one shit about the pirate but things need to be done in the easiest way. 

Passion is not the easiest way. 

They rest there, minutes, and Regina feels desire flow keenly through her body, pooling and moving to every place Emma's touching. 

"I don't want to sleep," Emma says suddenly, lifting her head to look at Regina.

"It's nearly morning," she replies. "We will be wrecked tomorrow with no sleep."

She lift her hand to run across Emma's lips, wet and ripe with kisses. Emma shivers and her eyes turn preternaturally dark in an instant. Regina's hand hesitates, and they lock gazes. 

"I want you so much," Emma says. "Fuck. Me."

Regina grins at Emma, her voice low. "I was so angsty for nothing. Look at you," and she is practically purring, dropping her fingers low to tease the inside of Emma's thigh. "This is going to be delicious."

"That's your MO."

Regina swats at her, and Emma laughs. "Can we make food if we can't get naked? Can't I soothe my aching, wet self with your home cooking?"

"You want me to cook? It's almost dawn!"

"Breakfast. I'll help. How can you possibly sleep right now, anyway?"

"I was thinking," and Regina cocks her head meaningfully, "a shower would be nice."

"Saving it is also nice," Emma shoots back, grinning. "Hold on. Imagine how good tonight will be."

Regina sighs, and Emma leans forward fast and kisses Regina mid-sigh, a quick, hungry thing that leaves Regina spinning, and Emma, just as fast, disentangles herself and holds out a hand to help Regina up. 

"I feel drunk," Emma says. "It's like ripping off a bandaid."

"Eggs?"

"Eggs, bacon, toast, avocado, spicy sauce!"

 

_____________

Henry has a half day because of teacher professional development -- which, from what Regina can surmise, includes halfhearted attempts at trust falls and a lot of hand-waving about upcoming standardized tests. It doesn't matter, but nobody knows it'll always be okay. Regina magicks the results. 

But it does mean Henry can join her and Emma for lunch in Regina's office. 

Emma brings fancy treats: a cheeseburger for Henry, a gorgeous beet and goat cheese salad and a crabmeat and rice thing for Regina, and some mac and cheese for herself. 

When she catches Regina eyeing her lunch food, she says, "Whaaat?" and swats her hand in front, protective. Regina simply lifts her gaze to meet Emma's, but instantly the air between them is charged, and it is Emma who drops her gaze first, her cheeks visibly flushed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. 

Regina glances quickly at Henry, who is eyeing them both suspiciously. Jesus. 

"Did you guys make up?"

"What?" asks Emma, still blushy. Idiot. 

"Did you guys. Make. Up."

"Henry, what are you talking about?" 

Henry rolls his eyes at Regina in perfect imitation of her in response to her question. "I'm almost an adult. I know when you're mad at each other. But it seems okay today. Just weird still. I was gonna say I'm proud of you. It used to take so long."

"We're okay, kid."

"I wasn't aware you were aware that something was amiss, Henry?"

"I'm your kid, mom. I always know when you're upset." He takes the last bite of his burger and continues with his mouth full, much to Regina's chagrin. "You always get this look on your face when you're mad at Emma. Not a mad look. Just a faraway one. It's hard to get your attention. Sometimes I have to call your name a couple of times."

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, Henry." But she does. 

He fixes her with a knowing look. "Right, mom." There's ketchup smeared on his face and he gets it with the back of his hand. His other mother's son. Definitely. "Anyway, I'm glad it's better."

Emma's cell rings. She flips it open, says, "I'll be right there," shaking her head No to Regina's unasked question about danger or threats or what have you, and then hangs up. "Duty calls," she announces. "I'll see you both tonight."

"Tonight?" asks Henry. 

"Tonight," she says, and her cheeks flush. "At your house."

When she's safely gone, Henry turns his gaze on to his mother. "Spill. It."

She feels the flush in her own cheeks rise. She regards her son coolly. "It's impolite to ask questions to which you already know the answer."

"You made that up! That's not impolite. Impolite is not telling your son when you have a major life event."

"Major life event?"

"Major life event."

"Nothing's happened, Henry."

He actually grumbles, then. "Then you're blind or not paying attention." He meets her eyes again, chin thrust up. "What about Hook?"

Regina exhales slowly and sat beside her son. "Henry, she might not love me. She doesn't love him. But she also might not love me. So it's nothing, it's not anything. It's not anything yet."

"Except she doesn't get paid until tomorrow and she still went all out for lunch. Except that wasn't a call from work because she forgot that she already told me when she picked me up that grandpa was going to be on call all afternoon."

"Maybe something came up."

"I bet you she's breaking up with him right now. I know his ring. That was him."

"Henry."

He looks at her with wide eyes, a hint of a smile dancing. "I'm not imagining this, Mom."

"Just because it's real doesn't mean it's going to be enough for her."

"Mom." He regards her levelly, all humor and whine gone from his voice. His voice is serious, and she is surprised, as if she is talking with the man Henry will be one day, and not the man-child he is now. "Yes. You are enough for her."

With this, Henry strikes the core, and Regina feels herself eviscerate. 

There is nothing left to be said. With effort and consummate grace, Regina turns their talk to other things: Ruby's taking him fishing, and Snow is going to teach him how to do bird calls before he comes home for dinner. He's excited. Regina's happy he's excited. It's good he has a kind of sort of normal life, bird calls and all. 

She holds it together, helping him throw away the garbage and ushering him out the door with a kiss before she loses it, barely making it into the bathroom before lets herself dissolve into tears.

It's important, she tells herself. She doesn't believe Henry. She knows this is an issue: that if Emma does love her, she needs to believe she is worth it. 

But she doesn't. Not all the way. Another bridge to cross. 

____

Henry is home before Emma, and this worries Regina until she sees the bug pull up outside. 

He is practicing his bird calls. Regina is so over it that she says yes when he asks for a bowl of cereal before dinner because it means his mouth will be too full to make sounds. 

Emma looks exhausted when finally she comes up the walkway, and Regina knows instantly that Henry was right: she'd talked to Hook. 

And for more than one horrible second, Regina is convinced that Emma has spent the afternoon soul-searching and deciding against her. Or that Killian has been cruel to her. Or that Regina has pushed her too hard, made things impossibly difficult where they had been manageable. 

On the way in, Emma touches Henry's head but when she lifts her gaze to Regina's, Emma breaks out into an all-out smile.

"Free," she says softly. 

"Free?" Regina repeats stupidly. 

Emma's smile widens, all traces of exhaustion gone from her face. She grasps Regina's hands in hers and tilts her head and asks softly, "Are you okay?"

Regina nods, dumbly, watching as Emma releases her hands and lowers herself to one knee. 

Oh, fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. 

Henry's spoon clatters to the ground. 

The words are out of Regina's mouth before she can gather them back. "But we haven't even sle--"

"Gross, Mom!! JUST SAY YES."

"Can I just--please--guys?" Emma looks first at Regina, whose hand is trembling and whose eyes are wide and dark and full of tears. She nods. Emma cranes her neck back around to Henry, who, mirroring Regina's gaze, nods too, hand clapped over his mouth, silent. 

"Regina," Emma begins, he voice quavering and gentle, looking up at Regina, her thumb tracing circles over Regina's palm, while Regina's other arm wraps round her own body tightly, as if holding herself down to the earth. "Regina," she starts again, and her voice is firmer, more sure. 

"I have loved you since you flew out of this house and wrapped yourself around Henry six years ago. I was drawn to you like you were the answer to some question I had forgotten how to ask. Fighting you gave me purpose. Fighting with you gave me strength, allowed me to understand that I was strong enough to do right, strong enough to be recognize myself as worthy of love. I was wrong last night, Regina. It's not that I've never fallen in love before. I have fallen in love with you over and over again. And I didn't know it because it wasn't supposed to be this way. I've never really had friends I could trust before you. I've never loved a woman before. It took today to show me that any lover I take is tolerable only because your love is the one that holds me up, makes me accountable. I know you will see me even if nobody else does or wants to. You are who sees me. And I see you. And I love you, Regina, I love you. Every part of you, every inch of your body and of your heart and your mind. And I want to grow old with you. I want to be your happy ending. I want us to have a home with Henry, together. I want to protect you and be protected by you." She pauses and takes a shaky breath, never leaving Regina's gaze. "Will you marry me, Regina?"

Regina drops to her own knees and crushes her mouth against Emma's. The tears are fast now, shock and relief and desire and disbelief crowding her. 

But mostly relief. Relief that there is nothing left to do but love who she loves. 

Regina holds Emma's face and covers her face in light, sweet kisses, until she hears Emma say softly, "Will you, Regina?"

Regina pulls back, one hand wiping her face and the other locked into Emma's, Emma's mouth kissing her knuckles as she watches her carefully, a grave expression beginning to set into her face. "Yes," Regina says, "yes, yes, yes," and she's crying and laughing, and Henry lets out a whoop. 

"Come here!" Regina says to him, pulling him by the hand down to the floor with them, and the women gather their son in a real hug. Henry is babbling and Emma is gazing at him and Regina can't make it out, overloaded and safe and home and it is real, it is real. 

"Where's the ring, Ma?"

"Oh my god, I forgot." Emma disentangles her arm and reaches into her pocket. 

"Put it on her, Ma," Henry chides, and Regina laughs out loud. 

It's spectacular, a small, beautiful object. Later that night in the hush and sate of their bed Emma will tell her that she has carried it for years on her, a ring left behind by a girl she'd known, a girl who was adopted from a house they lived in together, and that she had carried for years and years in hopes that she could see her again and restore the precious thing she had lost. And one day she did run into the girl, who was older now, sipping a coffee with her boyfriend, almost unrecognizable, and Emma had shifted on her feet, aware of her too-big coat, her uncool boots, and told the girl about the ring and the girl said to Emma, "I am happy. It's okay. You don't need to get it. Do what you need to do with it." This ring, then, was the only gift Emma had ever been given that was of both material and spiritual worth. 

Over time, when she was released, she reset the stones. Carried it with her, fingering it in her pocket until she worried she would dent the gold. But she didn't. And today she had it sized, which is what made her so late coming home. 

When Regina murmurs into her ear, "Why didn't you tell anyone?" Emma responds, "Because it was mine. The blanket, that was the end part of an unfinished story. The ring, that was the beginning of a story that would be mine. I wanted it, selfishly, to be just that. No wondering. No questioning." And when Regina asks her, "Why didn't you wear it?" Emma simply turns to her and kisses her soundly, which is both an answer and no answer at all, and Regina surrenders. 

They make love all night, wild, soft, open, completely open and surrendered to one another, in Regina's soundproofed bedroom. And Regina has never known this happiness, tracing her fingers down Emma's collarbone, knowing it can't and can all wait until morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 <3 <3
> 
> [[added 10/19: i'm pretty new here & want to be connected ... just not sure how. if u like, please share so i can keep connecting with readers & writers in the fandom. also if you want to give me a prompt, i'm super open. i'm brieflyshystarfish on tumblr & will be better about being more active there. i'm happy to go off the rails with ya'll a bit and just make our own canon. xxo]]


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